


in passing

by eganov



Series: Otherside [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Casual Sex, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Implied Sexual Content, Life is hard and nobody understands, Prostitution, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eganov/pseuds/eganov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a certain poetry to how cleanly you could lie to the rest of the world, but you could never lie to yourself.<br/>(Your name is Eridan Ampora and you've begun a descent into madness.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	in passing

You never thought that your life would do the turn it did. Frankly, you'd never thought at all. And even after it all, when you were convinced that everything was fine--and hell, the world was convinced that you were fine--you knew that, at a moments notice, you could fall apart. There was a certain poetry to how cleanly you could lie to the rest of the world, but you could never lie to yourself.

The end of the game was nostalgic at best for you, a bitter taste on your tongue. It meant change. It meant starting over. It meant repercussions. It meant judgment. At first, Karkat refused to speak to you. At first, the pain sunk in, sharp and hard, and you bawled on yourself until the tears dried and you were left realizing how stupid you were, sitting alone in your bathtub in your shorts with the water running cold, burning your gills. You grew more despondent, more lonely. Everyone else had something to do, more important than pay you attention. You were, honestly, afraid to approach anyone. Your last moments of life were frighteningly clear, and even after sharing a body and a mind with an asshole much like yourself you were frighteningly alone.

Feferi didn't face you, Karkat ignored you, Kanaya and you never ran into each other.

You split of fairly quickly, moving away from the hotel you were all temporarily staying in and splitting to find another place.

Frankly, you weren't sure if the low price was worth the location and the state.

Soon you found you had no reason to care.

* * *

When you first moved, you were almost tempted to turn tail and return to the others, begging for forgiveness. But you, bull-headed and stubborn, forced yourself to look past it. It would only be temporary, only temporary. As you scour the area for a job, you find yourself barely holding down a shitty job as a clerk at a local thrift shop, and being 16 earth years old with no degree from any of these shitty human institutions or even from the newly instituted troll institutions makes everything just a little more difficult. You work a shift with a girl who lives three blocks down from you, just a month shy of 24 and caring for a baby and a meth addiction.

She looks at you as if you're the source of her problems, and you just ignore her, minding your own fucking business. You've learned quickly that the lower class areas are the ones where the prejudiced lurk the most, and not everyone has taken to troll immigration into 'human territories' too well. It is plainly so idiotic that you would laugh if you weren't smart enough. But, really, your life is more valuable then a laugh. Even if you desperately need it.

Apparently she gets a boyfriend because he starts to make visits; he comes and takes to antagonizing you for the hell of it. They both watch you wither and crumple until you're nothing but a ball of tears.

The antagonizing persists for so long, and they always aim where it hurts the worst. How you got to this place. Why you're not living the high life. What the hell's wrong with you that you can't make anything more of yourself than trash. It's worse, it's hell all over again and you all but stop eating. Actually, it's a good thing, you think; you have more money to pay the bills. Less spent on a waste of space.

One day though, she stops his usual descent on you, and gives you a look.

"He ain't like the others. No fucking snobbery in this alien. Thought he was some macho high-ass."

"I'm only 16," You say quietly, arranging some clothing to keep yourself busy. "Human years, that is."

They leave you alone after that. Apparently picking on the young is too low in their moral compass and don't want it on their conscience.

You hand in your resignation a week later, because you can't bring yourself to make the trek down to the store anymore. You lack in energy and in will to do anything but stare at the wall.

* * *

You learn quickly to always pay in cash. Though the promise of these 'credit' and 'debit' cards gets almost overwhelming at times, you realize that drawing more debt to yourself is definitely not on your to-do list. You're in between debt and a hard place. Frankly, you are very justified this time around to say that it really does suck to be you. You feel the pain and misery eat you alive and it leads you to sitting in the middle of your living room, your arms carved up by your own claws. You stare down at yourself, tears welling up in your eyes and you can't even bring yourself to feel sorry for yourself anymore.

There isn't anything worth feeling sorry for. You aren't worth anything at all.

It's about this point that you start to cut.

At first it's just tiny little nicks on your arms. But you hate that; you don't want anyone to see. You don't want anyone to care. You don't want to be reminded at the worst possible moments. And so it escalates, little by little. Little cuts on your knees, to increasingly larger cuts all over the insides of your legs until you cut yourself so bad that you bleed all over the carpet as you drag yourself to the bathroom, dizzy with the pain.

It feels good, for the longest time. But when it gets harder to walk, people start asking questions at you. You have to quit your second job because people start accusing you of being a whore and that's never good for the self esteem. Your thighs end up swelling with infected cuts and you're actually even sick for the longest time, unable to move. You're scrawnier than normal as a result of it. You wonder how, and frankly, why you survive the fever as a result of the infections.

You cut your back, too, sometimes purposely, sometimes on accident, when you're woozy from bloodloss (not enough to kill you, need more than that to actually  _kill_ you) and you roll over to find that, oh, fuck, you rolled over on your fucking knife. Swell move, Ampora. It makes you sick, disgusted with yourself, and you just lay there after rolling off the knife, letting yourself bleed, sometimes letting yourself pass out, waiting, hoping for the end to come swiftly while you're under the inky coat of silence and unknowing.

It never does.

 

 

On a day that you're particularly sick and tired of everything--and it's probably been almost a year, now, that you've been hurting yourself, that you've been living this shitty, miserable life with miracle of all miracles not actually killed yourself--you take the five-hundred you have sitting under your pillow with you as you walk out of the complex, hands shoved in the pockets of your ratty jeans and an old jacket over your wife-beater. You don't wear your sign anymore; what's there in blood to be proud of?

You walk, slowly, scuffing your ratty sneakers against the cracking concrete, earfins tilted down and hair scraggly and gross in your face. You try to avoid using any of the utilities as much as possible. The less money you have to swindle away, the better.

(You find yourself giving head in the back of clubs more often, just to make ends meet. It's where whores are illegal but they swarm anyways, swathed in seductive shadows, just for some decent money. It seems that people like trolls since they have horns that you can hold onto.)

You hate what you've become.

You happen upon an alley and your blood chills to see someone in the actual alley. Your voice is shaking and gritty with disuse.

"Hello?" You're stuttering. Why the hell are you stuttering.

He doesn't answer.

 

Turns out it's actually a she.

The poor girl looks thin--almost like you, actually. She's curled up, a pistol in hand, and there's blood everywhere. A syringe is off to the side, as are several baggies of a white substance, and you're frozen in terror.

You hear a gun click and cool steel press into your spine.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, brat."

You sob.

"I don' w-wanna die, not like this--I just--I w-was jus'-"

The wielder turns you around and you see another troll. Your eyes widen in utter disbelief.

"Jesus fuck," The other snarls. Chartreuse-blooded, it would seem. "Aren't you fuckin' pathetic. What the hell are you doing in these parts,  _sea-dweller_?"

"I'm---I'm liwin' out the fuckin' c-consequences of a really bad decision," You reply, quickly, stumbling over your words in an uncouth and graceless manner. It's an act of desperation that you're speaking right now. "I only w-was lookin' at--at the gun, okay? I don't ewen know-w w-what the syringe or the w-white shit is, I sw-wear to fuckin' god--"

"God, you're a fucking newbie," The other breathes. He shoves you away, and you stumble back, slipping on the blood with a yelp and falling back flat on your ass. "Got any fucking cash, sea-dweller?"

You proffer forward the money you'd taken with you. He takes it, and files through it. He raises an eyebrow at you and scowls.

"How the hell did you manage to scour up this kind of money? More importantly, why the fuck are you carrying it around."

You smile, brokenly and laugh. "I got a death w-wish, I guess. W-wanted to find--fuck, I don't know-w. Somethin'. Anythin' to fill the fuckin' woid. I ---I w-whore out betw-ween jobs; just--just giwin' head. Need to pay the bills. But I--fuck, I don't fuckin' care about it. I just--w-want to fill the _woid._ "

He scowls at you, almost suspiciously. "How old are ya, ya stutterin' bastard?"

"I'm--I'm jus' ower eight sw-weeps ol'." You whimper. He swears, holstering the gun.

"Jesus christ, you're just a fuckin' juvenile."

He pockets the money and picks up the gun the dead girl possesses, and throws it at your feet. He also pulls out a key.

"Come 'ere. I'll give you something worth your money to whittle away the pain. Trus' me. You won't regret it."

 

That is the day you're introduced to the drug world, and after fucking him twice (and the worst part was that he was so _gentle_  because you were a virgin and you're only 8 and he's 18 and god why does this happen to you) he becomes your dealer and you only know him as Artie and nothing more. But thats okay. You're fine with that. He even leaves you a fifty in your pants pocket after he leaves and you're dazed and thoroughly fucked with your nook leaking chartreuse. Surprisingly, he came back before he actually completely left, and you blink disorientedly as he holds a paper bag; you take the bag, and look in to see a couple baggies of a strange green substance. You don't recognize it, and you assume that it's probably a human drug.

"Here, I'll give you some starters. Don't fuckin' use it all at once kid. I have some ideas why you want the gun, so I'm gonna ask you for your address. Just so I can come and check if you're dead within the next few days. Can't let perfectly good merch go to waste." You nod, slowly, absent-mindedly, and you sigh again, writing it down on a piece of the paper bag and ripping it, handing it to him. You follow him as you shows you how to prepare it, because he sure as hell wasn't going to prepare it for you. You answer him honestly that you will never speak a word about their operations, and that you might not be able to afford this in the future.

"I ain't gonna loan out to you, kid. I like you, cause you're one of us. A troll. I loaned out to that kid you saw, an' you can see how that turned out. Just know that I ain't gonna come after you. You need something, you come to me. I got anythin' you could ask for."

He leaves some starting materials for you to start off on. "For being a good lay," He merely comments. You take his word for it, and give him thanks for what he's given you, get yourself fixed up, and limp out of the building with as much grace as you can muster. He laughs behind you, saying something about highblood pride.

It stings even if he doesn't mean it in a mean way.

At first, you're so, so tempted to kill yourself. You sit there in your living room for the longest time, gun pointed at your temple, and you're sobbing, hating yourself so much that you can't even stand it. You hate what you've become. You hate what you are. You hate everything about you and you hate ever having existed. You just sit there, trying to will yourself to pull the trigger before you realize with a sinking feeling that you can't do it. You can't fucking kill yourself.

You hate yourself even more, and then you turn to the baggie next to you.

You close your eyes, swallow, and then get the materials you need.

You end up so fucking high in such a pleasant way that you're purring all by yourself and you make yourself come merely through fingering yourself. And you feel so good. Everything is pleasant and all the pain seems to melt away under the crippling euphoria. After an immeasurable amount of time, you're unconscious, and for once you're not sobbing, for once you don't feel bad, for once you're not hurting yourself.

 

You stay high for the rest of the next few weeks.

You spend your next paycheck on more weed; frankly, you stocked up on enough munchies to satiate yourself. You just don't want to lose this last shred of sanity you have left.

* * *

You feed this little habit of yours for several months before the next notable thing happens.

Meeting with Dave and Rose had been a complete accident. You never intended for it to happen. You didn't want it to happen. You didn't want to run into any people you used to know and yet--well, it happened. It was a Saturday, cold and miserable even with the sun out because the wind-chill was absolutely merciless. You wore your hoodie like a shield against the world, over your usual wife-beater and shitty pair of jeans and worn-out sneakers. The Strilondes that you were most acquainted with barely recognized you, if only for the sharp horns perched neatly among your unkempt and lackluster hair. Rose seems a bit more visibly affected than Dave does, in any case. When she sees you, recognizes you, and registers it as you her eyes widen subtly and her lips part gently in a gently sloped 'o' of surprise. Dave merely purses his lips, brows twitching ever so subtly. You keep looking down, trying to pass them and pretend you don't know them.

"Eridan." Your name catches you by the scruff of your neck, holding you helplessly hostage as the two round on their heels to look at you. You stand with a hunched posture, and you've taken to a cigarette at all times when you weren't smoking weed. You've been doing some business here and there, and are finally holding down a job now that you hotbox after work. The high is pleasant and distracting for you and allows you to resume a more normal kind of life. Well, stable in any case. It's something you've been missing for a long time.

"...Long time no see," You grit out distastefully. You inhale deeply, and let the smoke drizzle out of your mouth, glaring deftly over your shoulder at them. The taste in your mouth is appropriately bitter. "I ain't got any words for you."

"You do if you don't wish us to tell your friends that you're spending your life high," Rose said calmly. Being in mid-breath while smoking, you froze, stiffer than you could ever imagine yourself being, and turn to her, your mouth still full of smoke. You blow the puff of smoke out of your nose in utter anger, disregarding the way that it  _burns_ , making your eyes water.

"You wouldn't fuckin' dare, Lalonde."

She smirks at you, and you can tell that Dave hasn't been expecting any of the words that have passed.

"I do dare, darling Ampora, or do you not know me?"

You hiss and, if you weren't actually high as she accused, you would have seen spades. Fortunately for you, the high was still well lasting and it was enough for them not to ruin your day. But it's been getting harder, frankly, to keep the same high. You would have to seek out another alternative and ration your budget out accordingly.

You're shaken out of your reverie as Rose gently grasps your sleeves, smiling up at you; she's a bit shorter than you, but only by a few inches. Dave, unfortunately, is taller than you. This irritates you more than you'd like to admit.

"Let's do coffee. My treat."

Frankly she would regret making it her treat as a pang of hunger hit you.

You ended up scarfing down coffee, three cinnamon rolls, two muffins, and a chocolate chip cookie. The snacking desire temporarily abated, you sat back, sighing contentedly as you looked the pair over. Out of the three, you definitely looked like the homeless guy on the street. Dave seemed to have a new pair of converse which with a red hero of Time hoodie (that brought back painful memories and, frankly, you wonder why the hell he had ever thought it a good idea to have it custom-made). Rose is wearing a simple black dress, some leggings, and a purple sweater with the middle two buttons fastened. She looks at you with her imploring lavender eyes and you gaze back with blood-shot violet.

"What the hell do you want from me, Lalonde?" You're wearier than you'd like to be and you're itching for another high. You hate this. You hate sobriety. You wonder if you can lie your way into the club today and get a couple drinks just to ebb away the weight of the world.

"I want to know what you've been up to, simply put. The others talk about you, you know."

You sigh, tired, running a hand through your hair.

"Like I giwe a rats ass. They don't giwe a fuck 'bout me. Drop it or I'll scram an' fall off the goddamn radar. Won't ewen be able to find a trace of me."

Dave seems as though he'd love to argue, but Rose puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps him silent.

"Dear, you seem quite tired. Why are you walking about high?"

You sneer.

"I got shit to do, Lalonde. Ain't got time to sit on my ass an' do jack shit. Who the fuck else is gonna pay taxes? Barely got enough to get by."

She looks as though she wants to interject, but you cut her off angrily, slamming your hands down on the table and pushing yourself up.

"I had a nice time n' all, but this is my life. I ain't no fuckin' damsel in distress, Lalonde. This? Fuckin' recreational. Takes away the edge. Fuck off."

You turn tail and leave. They know you're fleeing. You do too.

You find yourself infuriated to find the phone that sits in your pocket. Attached to it is a note that reads:  _"This is entirely my present, Mr. Ampora. Please let me know if you have any problems and need solace or assistance. Also, let me know if the phone breaks. My schedule is mostly predictable. -Rose."_

Despite yourself, you keep the phone.

* * *

"These are pretty sensitive membranes, kid. You sure you wanna-"

"Does it look like I'm asking for an opinion, shitfuck? I came to get piercin's, not an adwocation."

The troll--a tealblood, from the looks of things--gives you an irritated look.

"Suit yourself."

You dig your claws into the arms of the chair and bite your lip as she pierces the little bud through your ear-fin, and moves on to the next.

The bottom part of your fins have two piercings in each of them--each individual piercing a silver-plated little thing with gaudy fake amethyst stones--after she's done. You then pull your shirt off, and trace your lower back, looking over your shoulder at her, and she can tell you're pretty fucking high.

"Surprise me, princess. Make it somethin' meanin'ful. What you'd like on your own body I guess? I don't want a fuckin' dick on my spine, or anythin' absurd like that."

She makes symbols into lotus blossoms. Frankly, you think she does a really good job, with little pettles that flutter and dwindle up your back to your shoulder blades.

It does wonders to cover up the self-inflicted scars.

You make sure to give her a tip. You think you can afford to skip off on groceries again. Not like you eat much anyways. Or even need anything.

* * *

You first take an opiate when you're recovering from the full back project. You cashed in your two weeks to heal properly and not be in a fuck-ton of pain. With a quick call to Artie, he shows up, and gives a whistle of admiration as he sees the bulging purple flesh that was your back, painted elegantly with the lotus flowers.

"Nice tat job, kid," He says, and you groan miserably from your place on the couch.

"Yeah, whatewer," You groan. "Do you hawe anythin' that'll kill the pain."

He pulls out a syringe and internally you cringe. The needle thing still makes you iffy. "Morphine. That's what it was made for anyways. Got the money?"

You pull it out skillfully and make the transaction.

You wonder where the fuck these kind of drugs have been all your fucking life.

 

You then discover lean when you start investigating the music scenes, and you're listening to some rap when they start mentioning something called sizzurp.

You're curious and you take your search to the streets. After fucking Artie clean and thorough (and you've learned some new tricks, oh, have you learned) and paying him a plentiful wad of cash, he hands over the main ingredient--and he doesn't skimp, either. He seems to like you; you're a pretty well-paying customer, you guess, and you even give him a stress-reliever once in a while, how can he not? And you two are of the same kind. He takes the time to inform you of the best way to make the drink.

That's when the addiction truly begins.

You barely manage to hold on to your job as you become more consumed by this mystical drug.

* * *

 

It becomes a habit for you to hotbox and drink some lean before passing out as you listen to this jukebox Dave gets you for your birthday, despite your begging them not to do anything for you. You wonder why they still care. You wonder why they bother. You wonder why they worry.

Theres nothing wrong with you. Your life is zen (a nightmare).

Instead of complaining, you get on with your life; you go to work high, you get home, you drink your lean, you smoke more weed, and sell your soul to the music as the night goes on.

You make no note of how the amount of lean you drink increases.

* * *

You get word from someone and it's been two years. Two years of pleasant ease (suffering); you've jumped between jobs, and land on a stable one, yet again, and you hope it'll be for a little while longer. The job hunting is never pleasant and requires several hours of toking to make it get out from under your skin. You've finally adjusted to this life. You finally have moved on. So it makes your blood boil when you see a text message notification on your phone; it's a newer model phone, unlocked and untampered with on Roses promise. You wonder, suspiciously, if she had crossed her fingers behind her back while making the promise with you. You wouldn't put it beneath her, frankly.

CG: HEY, SHITFACE. WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME.  
CA: howw the fuck did you get this number  
CG: SOLLUX, THATS FUCKING HOW.

You cringe and swallow. This was not a welcome intervention. She probably did not play a major hand in this, you think. You hope. Mostly, your meetings were small and few in between time. It was enough to keep you consciously remembering they existed and to make your life just a little more unpleasant. But lately, with your beautiful relaxants and stress-relievers, you found that you were a lot less bothered. But with the more pressing matters at hand.

CG: I SWEAR TO GOD THAT IF YOU'VE BEEN GETTING YOURSELF INTO DEEP SHIT THAT YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF, I'M GOING TO SINK MY FOOT SO FAR UP YOUR WASTE CUTE THAT YOU'LL BE TASTING RUBBER AND EXCREMENT FOR WEEKS, AMPORA. YOU HEAR ME?  
CG: WOULD YOU FUCKING ANSWER ALREADY? I'M ABOUT TO GO ON ANOTHER LINE OF NERVOUS RANTING TO SATIATE MY UNNERVED STATE. DO YOU REALLY WANT ME TO DO THAT AMPORA BECAUSE I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO DO THAT.  
CA: arent you a fuckin wwreck  
CA: boo fuckin hoo for you  
CA: i guess that makes one of us anywways  
CA: cut the crap vvantas i knoww you dont fuckin mean a thin you say  
CG: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO SAY WHAT I DO AND DON'T FEEL, YOU INSUFFERABLE MASS OF SHIT.  
CA: someone wwho didnt need you hackin my fuckin phone noww get the fuck out of my life already wwould you  
CA: you made it pretty fuckin clear that i wwasnt wwelcome  
CA: so wwhat fuckin changed mmm  
CA: common vvantas hit me wwith your best fuckin shot ivve got my fisticuff strifekind equipped  
CG: I DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHO YOU ARE ANYMORE. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ERIDAN FUCKING AMPORA, WHINY SHITBAG EXTRAORDINAIRE.  
CA: you knoww wwhat kar  
CA: motherfuckin newwsflash for you  
CA: THINS CHANGE  
CA: noww if youll fuckin excuse me i havve to get to wwork  
CG: THIS ISN'T FINISHED, AMPORA.  
CA: yes it is  
CA: im blockin your fuckin number an tossin my fuckin phone in the rivver to keep you from tracin me  
CA: you didnt need me and i certainly dont fuckin need you  
CA: not noww and not evver again

You do, in fact, get rid of your phone. But it's through tracking down Rose and telling her to exchange the phone, since she was so adamant on you having it. She purses her lips, but goes through with it, saying not a word of how you're skillfully avoiding any contact with your old ties.

In anger and internal retaliation, you sell your body for the night at a club before going home, getting high, and scrubbing yourself raw in the shower, music thumping out of your jukebox.

* * *

 

It's only three weeks later.

You smile.

Your vision spins---you drag your feet to the bathroom. You drank too much---You drank too much? What the fuck did you even drink. You drank---drank, drank, oh, shit, lean. Right. Lean. How much? How much. You don’t re m e m b e r.

You lick your lips, feeling the world haze around you. There was other shit you had too. Weed, right? Right. Shit. You go through your customs (same routine) and set the jukebox to play your personal favorites. The bass thrums, consumes you (engulfs you and leaves nothing left) and you sigh, feeling yourself vibrate in pure ecstasy (manic excitement) as you kneel---kneel, not stumble, not fall, or was that it? Did you fall? You’re not sure anymore.

But it’s alright, though, you’re lost in the buzz, the euphoria (the terror) and you’re fine. You’re perfectly fine.

You draw the bath. You strip down, leaving your shorts on. You leave them on because---well, because you can. You want to? You like it better. You’re not cleaning. You’re soaking. Yes. Soaking, soaking in the bass, the pleasure, the numbness, the haziness, the lack of recollection.

You can breath it in, after all.

You smile.

* * *

Your name is Eridan Ampora and the last thing you hear is a watery voice above your pleasant daze as Macklemore rolls up on your list and you feel like you’ve actually drowned, and yet you could care less.

**Author's Note:**

> and yes this does end up flowing into otherside---the last section is the beginning of it actually  
> this was longer than i intended it to be woops


End file.
